A $73 million plan to draw residents, office workers and businesses to the Edge district generated positive buzz Wednesday.

It promises new life for the sprawling Wonder Bread bakery site, vacant since 2013, in a redevelopment that preserves the bakery’s most architecturally distinctive section.

It presents a solution to a shortage of housing for students, medical workers and institutional employees in the Medical District, and it proposes a public parking structure to answer the perennial question, “Where do you park?”

“The plan that he’s proposed is absolutely consistent with what we’ve long anticipated,” said Brice Timmons, a co-owner of High Cotton Brewing. “We continue to believe the Edge district is the inevitable next development district for Downtown.”

Next stop for Prosterman and partners is a downtown board with authority to grant a 20-year property tax reduction. Developers say the incentive would make or break their ability to move forward.

The development would generate about $6.2 million in additional taxes to the city and county over 20 years. The developer's estimated savings from the partial tax freeze would be $18.8 million, which the downtown commission labels “hypothetical,” because the project won’t go forward without the incentive.

'We are big believers in what can happen in the Edge'

The plan calls for reuse of the oldest, western section of Wonder Bread, as 75,000 square feet of office space, anchored by a 120-employee financial services company headquarters coming from out of town. Prosterman declined to name the company.

A more recent, industrial addition to Wonder Bread would be demolished to make way for construction of 286 apartments in five- and six-story buildings fronting Monroe, Madison and Lauderdale. A 480-space parking garage is proposed to complete the block.

Elsewhere, historic buildings at 411 Monroe, 421 Monroe and 435 Madison would be refurbished tor a total of 79,000 square feet of office, retail and recreational space.

“We are big believers in what can happen in the Edge,” Prosterman said.

With the Edge sitting between Downtown and Medical District development hotspots, “It’s sort of natural that should be connected,” he said.

Downtown demand for housing is high

Downtown’s apartment occupancy rate is 94 percent, but the supply thins out starting a few blocks east of the Downtown core. Prosterman believes there’s a large, untapped market in the Medical District.

“If we put in great housing stock and a walkable neighborhood that’s good for these folks, they’ll want to live there," Prosterman said. "We’re confident it makes sense, given the demographics that exist in the area and the people that are already in the area and the growth of the employment base in meds and eds."

“Right now, those people are choosing to live other places, because there are not a lot of options,” Prosterman said.

Preserving the history

Prosterman said the part of the bakery that’s slated for demolition is “just an industrial factory, not a lot of redeeming architectural features. Most folks know we save a lot of historic buildings all over the country.”

He was developer of the Hotel Chisca conversion to apartments and has been involved in revitalizing historic buildings in Tampa and Philadelphia as Le Meridien hotels.

“The area that they are saving on the Wonder Bread bakery is to me the most significant, architecturally interesting part, and I’m appreciative of their respect for that component of the building,” West said.

“The fact that they are repurposing the bicycle shop (421 Monroe), the glass factory (435 Monroe) and most of the other buildings that they have purchased over there, is pretty remarkable,” West said.

Mike Todd, president and chief executive of Premiere Contractors, said, “They are saving the most historic portion of the building, which I think is very positive.”

Transformation of the Edge neighborhood

Todd was the Edge's largest property owner before Prosterman came along. He said he would have preferred more dialog between developer and neighborhood, but he likes what he sees.

“It appears to be a very high quality development,” Todd said. “It appears that they are trying to keep the fabric of the neighborhood somewhat intact in doing some smaller projects and allowing them to remain, using adaptive reuse, etcetera.”

For those who have been operating in the Edge district awhile, Prosterman’s plan is validation.

“Simply put, we think this is absolute proof we were right to be an early adopter in the Edge,” High Cotton’s Timmons said. “We always knew this was a critical development area for our city. We were glad to be a test case for it.”

“Microbreweries have a long history in this country of being a canary in the coal mine for a neighborhood like the Edge, that’s a little bit risky, but has potential,” Timmons added.

Timmons and partners opened High Cotton’s brewing operation in 2013 and later added a tap room that serves the beer. They supported the recent opening of Edge Alley, where microretailers are clustered around a coffee bar, next door to the tap room.

A boost to the neighborhood

Wonder Bread apartments and more parking will be a big boost for the neighborhood.

Timmons said, “You would think that the neighborhood would have more people that are working in the medical district. We’ve got just a few, and I’m hoping to see a lot more.”

Todd said, “I think the parking garage is a very essential part of the project, not only for their project but to continue the development of the neighborhood. I definitely believe that parking needs to be public-private and not just for the exclusive use of that building.”

Developers propose a parking facility operated by the Downtown Parking Authority and financed by $6 million from a development fund at the Downtown agency and $2.9 million from the developer.

Similar deals have been done for One Commerce Square, the Chisca, the ongoing Tennessee Brewery project and the proposed One Beale.